"Kabbalah emerges as a distinct movement within Judaism in medieval Europe, but the experience of direct contact with the divine is already evident in the earliest Jewish book – the Bible."

Kabbalah emerges as a distinct movement within Judaism in medieval Europe, but the experience of direct contact with the divine is already evident in the earliest Jewish book – the Bible. When Moses encounters God at the burning bush, he is overwhelmed: "afraid to look at God," and he hides his face. Soon God reveals the divine name, "I am that I am," intimating what eventually becomes a mystical refrain: God cannot be defined (Exodus 3:6, 14). Later, at Mt. Sinai, Moses asks to see the divine presence, but God tells him, "No human can see me and live." Yet the Torah concludes by saying that God knew Moses "face to face" (Exodus 33:20, Deuteronomy 34:10). The prophet Isaiah sees God enthroned in the Temple in Jerusalem, accompanied by fiery angels who call out to one another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his presence" (Isaiah 6:3). The most graphic account of a vision of God is undoubtedly the opening chapter of the book of Ezekiel. Standing by a river in Babylon, the prophet sees a throne whirling through heaven, accompanied by four winged creatures darting to and fro. On the throne is "a figure with the appearance of a human being," surrounded by radiance like a rainbow.

Ezekiel experienced this vision near the beginning of the sixth century B.C.E. Even before his book was canonized as part of the Bible, his vision had become the archetype of Jewish mystical ascent. Until the emergence of Kabbalah, Jewish mystics used Ezekiel’s account as their model. Me’aseh merkavah, the account of the chariot – as it came to be called – was expounded in some circles, imitated in others.

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